There are no shortcuts

There is one thing which needs to be said very clearly, as there is a lot of misconception on the topic.

Whatever you want to achieve, personally or professionally, there are no shortcuts.

There is not any magic formula for anything what is valuable and solid.

You can be lucky, but this is not reproducible on demand and therefore hoping for luck is extremely risky. It is like you would rely your personal budget on the income from gambling.

“No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.”

(Leon Battista Alberti)

Whatever you want to do, the surest way to make it happen is just to work hard on it. Therefore, it is so important to choose your actions according to what you really enjoy, otherwise it can be a nightmare, considering how much time and effort you need to put in any endeavour.

I was once talking with a sport expert, who told me that those who go into sport for medals are not the best ones. You need to enjoy the process. Whatever you decide to do, it will define your days, how you will spend your time. This is very important choice, as time, which is spent well flies, while time not well spend will always seem to be an eternity and will not make you happy.

I think it applies to any profession and beyond, including hobbies, choosing place to live, friends and partner in life. You need to enjoy the process in which you are putting yourself, otherwise it is not worth it, no matter what you will get in return.

Why this is so important? Because nothing will just happen remotely. To any route you choose in your life you will put hours and hours.

Whatever goal you want to achieve, no matter how far it seems to be, you should not hope for any magic tricks. I think scientific method applies to any long-term objectives. In science you push the boundaries of what is known, to figure out what is not understood today. How? With little steps forward.

If you follow the reasoning, there is always a small area, beyond of what you know, where you have a chance to make the right guess. This is in between what you already know very well and what is beyond your comprehension. This little area is where you need to be. Not trying to jump too far, but also not staying withing the boundaries of your current knowledge.

Too big steps will create confusion, while too little steps will lead to stagnation. It is difficult and occasional mistakes are inevitable. The size of this area and the size of the steps you can take are defined by your abilities. The more abilities you develop, the bigger steps you can afford to take without risking a total mess.

There are no shortcuts, you can only broaden the area between your knowledge and your ignorance by working on your abilities.

Mistakes are part of the process. For this reason, it is good to evaluate your direction in longer intervals, without worrying too much on every little thing that happens. Rather, I am doing better than last year?

This of course requires some humility. People who stay in their comfort areas have often little humility. Overcoming challenges and making mistakes are effective cures for arrogance and judgemental attitude. Pushing your boundaries has additional stress component, which is external criticism. At the end only you know well your goals and know your boundaries. For other people your choices may look stupid. And those who have nothing better to do, will find the time to tell you that you are stupid. Therefore, it is so important to work on your own reasoning abilities, so that you can follow your compass, and do not get distracted with external opinions. Most people will judge you based on two main factors (highly correlated): (1) whether they like you or not (2) whether what you do is convenient for them or not. Therefore, it is most of the time completely irrelevant. It is very rare that someone will give you a good advice. You always need to consider potential conflict of interest between any opinion source and yourself.

I think that scientific method of reasoning, critical thinking, designing experiments based on your current knowledge which can push you beyond what you already know are very helpful in many fields. I think there is a lot of value in what you can learn from doing scientific research, if you do them with your own thinking. In science you may have a rare luck, that your advisors are smart and have the same objective as you: to make a successful study. This is an incredible occasion to learn how to think, under the guidance of more experienced people and get confidence in your own abilities. This is however a specific, ideal situation, which is hard to find elsewhere. In most places it is better to rely on your own judgement. Great to talk to everyone, great to see other points of view, this is extremely important, but you need to process them through your own filters. There is a big difference between (1) listening to everyone’s opinion and (2) getting influenced by other’s opinions. The first one is a necessity, the second one is most of the times very harmful.

Nobody will give you a magic formula. In the time of internet, the access to information is quite free. Most of the things you need to know are either available for free or with a little charge. You only need to know which information you should process. Like in science, you cannot read all the publications available, study all the books ever written, so it is better to choose wisely. This does not mean to stick to one topic. Multidisciplinary research where you combine different domains in productive ways can lead to very innovative results. But how you select the information to process is an essential factor. This is the reason why you need to develop your own filters. The best way for this is work on your reasoning skills.

The only ‘formula’ is to work hard, figure out your priorities so you do not go in the directions which are not good for you and make little steps towards whenever you want to go.